Survey on the knowledge and willingness of genetic counseling and testing in blood relatives of breast cancer patients / 复旦学报（医学版）

Objective To investigate the knowledge and willingness of genetic counseling and testing in blood relatives of breast cancer patients.Methods A total of 922 blood relatives of breast cancer patients finished our questionnaire.Data were devided into different groups according to age,family history of tumor for statistical analysis.Results Most of the respondents were unaware of genetic counseling and genetic testing.However,after a brief introduction,major of them were willing to accept genetic counseling,breast cancer risk evaluation and screening.Specifically,79.8％ of them were willing to accept genetic counseling,and 62.3％ were willing to accept genetic testing.Most of the respondents would accept inexpensive early genetic screening.For the genetic testing with higher prices,only 37.9％ of them would accept it.Supposing a positive genetic testing result,most of them were willing to perform prevention through close follow-upscreening,31.3％ of them would choose prophylactic surgery or drugs.Despite being told the confidentiality of the test results,32.9％ of them worried about the adverse effects of genetic test.Conclusions Most of the blood relatives of breast cancer patients were unaware of counseling and genetic testing,but had apparent willingness to accept them.Misunderstanding of genetic characteristics,costs and concerning about discrimination are obstacles for the respondents to accept genetic counseling,genetic testing and related screening prevention.

An Increased Incidence Of C-Band Heteromorphism In Hereditary Breast Cancer Patients and Their Healthy Blood Relatives An Indian Experience.

Healthy blood relatives (HBR) of the hereditary breast cancer (HBC) patients are considered to be at higher risk to develop cancer. However, all of them do not suffer from same. This may indicate the possibility of association with genetic polymorphism among them. We have studied this genetic polymorphism in terms of C-band heteromorphism among 11 HBC patients, 36 HBR and results were compared with 22 control females. Significantly higher incidence (p < 0.001) of C-band heteromorphism has been observed among the HBC patients and their HBR as compared to the control females. At the same time, however, the difference in incidence of C-band heteromorphism among HBC patients and their HBR were not statistically significant. The findings indicate possibilities of (i) an association between C-band heteromorphism and hereditary breast cancer, and (ii) C-band heteromorphism may be one of the important factors conferring HBR at an elevated risk to develop the breast cancer.